Birdsong
by Toboe LoneWolf
Summary: Two birds in the Tower. And like all songbirds, they sing. [Oneshot, RobRae, not a songfic]


_Summary_: Two birds in the Tower. And like all songbirds, they sing. (One shot, _not_ a songfic).

Toboe LoneWolf: Yep. Continuing the relationship one-shot thingy I've got here on ff(dot)net, is a Robin-Raven fic. Can be interpreted as shipping or simply strong friendship, since the Robin-Raven dynamic is a lot softer, quieter than Robin/Starfire or Beast Boy/Raven.

And no, neither Robin nor Raven is suddenly going to burst into song. XP This is not a songfic. There are absolutely no lyrics of any kind. The "singing" I have in this fic is a bit different.

_Disclaimer_: Toboe LoneWolf does not own the Teen Titans.

* * *

**Birdsong**

It wasn't exactly a ritual or anything. Not a habit, nor something that somehow became a tradition or a routine or a pattern.

Call it…mutual occurrences that happened frequently. Or something like it.

Late at night at the Tower, the Titans were all drifting into their pre-sleeping routines – Cyborg and Beast Boy playing "one last" video game, Starfire cuddling with Silkie, Raven on the couch reading, and Robin shuffling through one last set of videoscreens.

"BOOYA!"

"Aw man!"

And they were the first to leave, grumbling good-heartedly.

Starfire was next, giving one last hug to Robin. Robin mumbled a good night in response. Starfire smiled, and left the common room.

With a backward glance, Robin sighed and turned off the computer. He turned to the last teammate in the room.

"Night, Raven."

Raven glanced up from her book and gave a slight nod. Robin smiled, and tilted his head, and walked out.

And that was four.

For a while Raven was the last one in the room, still reading. She came to the end of the book. With a bit of sad remorse she closed the covers. Fingering the cover's binding, Raven let the last fading images of the book linger in her mind; one by one they drifted off. With a soft whisper she sent the book back to her room, the book glowing for a moment in her black magic. Then, pulling in the folds of her cloak, she levitated in her traditional meditation stance.

Clearing her mind she gently touched each one of her teammates' minds, seeing that they slept soundly. Cyborg was already having his strangely logical dreams, Beast Boy his wild ones. Raven could only tell that Starfire was in her natural sleeping state, the Tamaranean mind too alien to Raven to tell much further. Although from the faint emotional vibe Raven could venture that Starfire was having a "glorious" dream.

Robin, though. His mind was still pacing, still calculating. Even in sleep, he could not rest.

Raven pulled away. With an absent wave of her hand she activated the Tower's nighttime security system. For another moment she was still. Considering. Then she folded inwards, phasing through the floor, towards a troubled bird.

**x x x x x**

She entered Robin's room without a sound. Opening her eyes in the darkness, she could sense Robin's restless mind. Raven floated over towards Robin's bed. Mumbling, Robin turned over in his sleep, pulling at his covers.

With deft fingers Raven untangled the mess around Robin. Then, a bit daring, Raven brushed a cool forefinger against Robin's brow. Her finger trailed off as her mouth opened and began to sing an old lullaby.

She was no great singer, truth be told. Her voice was not made for singing. Like a raven's, her voice was harsh and rough, better suited for sarcasm than song.

Nevertheless, Raven sang softly to Robin. If her voice stumbled or had odd tonalities at one point, well, no one was listening, anyway.

Even then, Robin stilled, relaxing. He stopped tossing, and his fitful breathing slowed.

Raven was not sure exactly why she did this, time to time. She did not have to. Robin had done fine by himself beforehand. She didn't even know why she was singing in the first place. But…it felt…okay…somehow.

As her voice followed the old song, Raven's drifted off to the first day she…began singing.

_**- x x x x x -**_

Raven sat facing east, meditating on top of the roof. Faintly she heard the rooftop door open. With quiet footsteps the intruder padded over to the edge, next to Raven.

Raven opened one eye. "What is it, Robin?"

Robin smiled, and motioned with one hand. "Just wanted to enjoy the sunrise."

She raised an eyebrow in inquiry at Robin, who shrugged. Raven folded her hands and turned back to face the sun. Sunrise…

They watched in silence, Raven floating in midair, Robin leaning against the railing. A robin flew up and landed on a concrete block on the rooftop.

Robin pointed. "Hey Raven. Check this out."

Turning towards the bird, he whistled a lilting tune. To Raven's amazement, the little robin sang back. They traded back and forth, tiny little notes on the scales. Eventually Robin tilted his head, and the little bird chirped and flew away.

Raven had a slight smile on her face. "Nice."

"Thanks." Robin's eyes were following the robin as it flew away. "Sometimes Beast Boy and I come up early and whistle to a whole flock. It's pretty cool."

"That must be an experience," Raven said, coming down from mid-air. "Beast Boy actually waking up early."

Robin laughed. "Yeah, I guess it's pretty unusual for him. But hey, once in a while the guy surprises you."

"I didn't know you could whistle."

"Well, I'm just full of surprises, aren't I?" Robin smiled, and began to walk towards the door.

"Of course you are." Raven rolled her eyes as she followed him. "But you know that the robin was just defending his territory," Raven pointed out. "Bird's singing is simply a natural instinct to either attract a mate or to defend territory. It wasn't what it really looked like."

"Instinct, perhaps," Robin shrugged. "But you know, Raven…" He stopped at the doorway for a moment.

"Sometimes…singing…is just that – singing."

_**x x x**_

She'd never noticed it before. How often Robin whistled. Raven wondered how she'd missed it. Robin whistling as he watered the garden, or made breakfast, or walked towards the gym. Perhaps she'd heard it and it never registered subconsciously.

But now that she knew, she kind of liked Robin whistling.

It became sort of a happy constant in the day, like Cyborg and Beast Boy playing video games or Starfire walking Silkie. Robin whistled all kinds of stuff, cheerful little tunes ranging from classics and Christmas carols, to popular songs to just random notes. And sometimes, he'd whistle a tiny little tune that made Raven recall a bird on the rooftop, singing back to a human bird.

Then there came one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong: when the villains were elusively hard to catch, when civilians got caught up in the fray and were barely saved; one of those days of "_should have been._" Should've been there. Should've known. Should've caught him, but they'd _just_ missed…

Frustrating, to say the least.

They all had their coping mechanisms. The T-car, video games, cooking, meditation, beating up the punching bag in the gym…

Robin was not whistling that day.

She noticed. And it bothered her, for some reason. It'd been a constant that when it wasn't there, something felt wrong.

It annoyed her as well, that she had come to rely on somebody's _whistling_ to make her feel all right.

They all went to sleep disgruntled. But at least the next day, they could redeem themselves. In their eyes.

But not for Robin. In his dreams continuous scenes of what _should have been_ ran before his eyes: missed steps, fingers that brushed against their goal and missed. The next day he would have to work harder, to do things right. He could not sleep until then, until he had redeemed himself of his gaping mistake, too large to dismiss in his eyes. And Raven, who was already on edge, could not sleep either.

No, she did not sing to him that night.

Nor the next time when Robin kept her awake. Or the time after that. Robin respected his teammates' need for privacy, and Raven returned that. Besides, Robin had coped through this before, alone. And so had Raven. It was not right, to share…

When those days came, Raven took to meditating through the night. She could not sleep anyway. At least then she could keep her mind settled, if it would not rest.

In meditation, the subconscious mind…wanders, in a way. Not free, but not set. At these times, Raven let her mind drift.

She found herself humming when dawn broke.

And she was oddly…happy.

This she pondered for the next few days. She knew that music could have relaxing qualities. But what she had hummed…was nothing she knew of. She knew the songs the monks of Azarath sang, their rhythmic chants, old lullabies she barely remembered her mother singing…but that she had been humming something completely random, well, that was new to Raven.

She'd been…singing for singing's sake.

What Robin had said came back to her mind. _"Sometimes…singing…is just that – singing."_

Now she understood.

The next time Robin slept fitfully, Raven did not meditate. She sat on her bed, thinking. Then she pulled herself inwards, and reappeared in Robin's room. Hooded and cloaked, on the far side of the room. She fell into the familiar lotus position.

She picked a simple song. One the monks of Azarath used to sing as they walked down the streets, when the sun was shining and the day was beautiful. Faint and soft, she sang.

No, it was not wondrously beautiful. Robin had not woken up to find an angel singing to him. He had stirred, and then…stilled. The frantic images in his mind trailed off, and his mind slipped into deeper slumber.

That was all she had done that night. The next, she sang a little more. And came a little closer. The next, she dared to come right up to his bed. Then she put down her hood. Then, truly daring, she sang the tunes that floated in her mind, that were hers and hers alone.

Throughout, Robin slept in peace.

And he would whistle the next day.

_**- x x x x x -**_

Raven smiled at the memories.

The end of the song had come long before, but she was still singing. She made up her own harmonies, playing with the notes. There were no words, simply rises and falls in musical pitch. Her mind wandered down a winding path, and her voice followed. Her own song, long and low, though a raven's voice is harsh and not meant for singing.

But all songbirds sing.

As the first rays of dawn come through the window, she saw a robin flitter past. Smiling, she hummed a few notes that Robin had whistled that day. The robin peeped and landed on the windowsill. Fluffing its feathers, it tweeted back. Raven tilted her head, as Robin had done. Then she pulled in the folds of her cloak and reappeared back in her room.

Only the little bird saw Robin's unconscious smile.

**x x x x x**

That morning Raven could hear Robin whistling down to breakfast. A breakfast thankfully cooked by Cyborg this time. And although Cyborg had cooked It with a three foot extension and plastic gloves, Cyborg had indeed cooked a meat-free breakfast for Beast Boy.

They all gathered for breakfast, chatting happily. In a lull between bites Starfire asked Robin, "What was that song you were whistling this morning? I have never heard of it before. It was…different."

Raven mentally dismissed the question. She was just happy that Robin was whistling. But then the notes echoed in her mind. Her eyes widened.

It was what she'd sung last night.

Robin rubbed the back of his neck. "I dunno Star…just something random that popped into my head. It just sounded like something I've heard before…"

His eyes trailed off and met Raven's. With a furtive blush she turned her face away.

Robin blinked. And then he smiled.

"Aw, it's just something birds do. Sometimes, we just sing…for singing's sake."


End file.
